Government Waste

A nonprofit run by state lawmakers to raise scholarship money for needy minority students spends most of the cash on its lavish annual soiree — including $6,000 on limos — and gave out no grants the last two years, The Post has learned.

The New York State Association of Black and Puerto Rican Legislators organizes a “Caucus Weekend” — a series of workshops, concerts and parties — in Albany every February for minority members of the Assembly and the Senate.

The group charges sponsors up to $50,000 for a chance to party with lawmakers at events that have ­included Grammy Award-winning rappers and high-profile speakers such as Hillary Clinton and Jesse Jackson.

The Presidents Day weekend bash is capped off with a swanky black-tie Scholarship Gala where participants are reminded that they are “changing lives, one scholarship at a time,” according to the group’s Web site and literature.

But in the last two years there has been no cash for scholarships, according to two sources — a former lawmaker, and a community organizer who has relied on the money for needy students since just after the group was founded in 1985.

Federal tax filings confirm that in the 2015-16 fiscal year, which ended Sept. 30, 2016, the group gave out no educational grants — despite raking in contributions totaling more than $500,000.

“I don’t know what happened,” said Assemblyman Gary Pretlow, a Westchester Democrat and the longtime treasurer for the group. “I just sign the checks they give me to sign.”

While students went without scholarships, the lawmakers at Caucus Weekend 2016 spent $128,000 on “food service,” $36,500 on music and $56,494 on “equipment rental.”

The group failed to furnish The Post with the subsequent year’s tax filings — October 2016 to September 2017 — despite a federal law requiring it to do so.

The group had its charitable status temporarily revoked in 2011 by the IRS after it failed to file tax returns for three consecutive years, according to federal tax documents.

When asked why the group had not given out any money to students in either year — even though scholarships are the heart of its stated mission — the lawmakers who manage the nonprofit refused to answer. The group is chaired by a president who serves a two-year term.

Assemblywoman Latrice Walker, a Brooklyn Democrat, the current chair of the nonprofit’s board, who is campaigning to be the city’s public advocate, said through a spokesman that she “does not have any knowledge of the matter.”

State Sen. Leroy Comrie, a Queens Democrat and second-ranking board executive, did not return phone calls and e-mails, and would not emerge from his St. Albans district office when a Post reporter visited Friday. Queens Assemblywoman Michele Titus, a Democrat and the former chairwoman in 2015-16, did not return messages seeking comment.

Other board members, including former state Comptroller Carl McCall, did not return The Post’s calls. None would provide a copy of their latest tax filings.

“Money comes from the events and we have a lot of bills associated with the events,” Pretlow said.

In the 2014-15 fiscal year ending Sept. 30, 2015, the group spent $157,926 on “food service,” $6,332 on limousines and $30,657 on “event decor,” according to tax filings. It also spent $3,000 on the Sunday preacher.

Of the $564,677 the group received in contributions that year, only $35,745 went to scholarships, a little more than 6.3 percent of total revenue.

Charity watchdog groups such as Charity Navigator recommend that at least a third of a nonprofit’s revenues go to its stated purpose.

In the previous fiscal year, 2013-14, the group doled out $32,000 in scholarships out of total contributions of $580,190, tax filings show.

The nonprofit charges sponsors like unions, lobbying firms and corporations up to $50,000 for a “Platinum Package” which includes tickets to workshops on expanding access to government contracts for minority and women-owned businesses, on gun ­violence, and parties where participants can rub elbows with lawmakers and “ a large community of advocates.”

The weekend is considered a can’t-miss date on the Albany political calendar.

Past weekends have included an exclusive screening of “Black Panther” and an after-party concert by Doug E. Fresh and Slick Rick, or Grammy-winning rapper Big Daddy Kane. Speakers have included Gov. Cuomo, Mayor de Blasio, former US Ambassador Andrew Young and TV host and medical-marijuana advocate Montel Williams.

Your Government waste billions every year on failed companies and no one is held accountable.

Senate Democrats have shown their willingness to shut down the government in lieu of spending nearly $6 billion on a border wall, but compare that price tag to some of the other expenditures the government funds.

House Republicans passed a stopgap funding bill on Thursday that included $5.7 billion to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. However, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer vowed to kill any funding measure appropriating for a wall’s construction.

Schumer has referred to the wall as “expensive and ineffective,” but just how expensive is it relative to recent expenditures?

The Environmental and Protection Agency (EPA) was appropriated a $5.7 billion budget in 2018, down from the roughly $8 billion annual budget it has received since the mid-1990s. Inline with the agency’s mission statement, nearly 90 percent of the budget is used to provide grants safeguarding clear air, land and water, according to National Geographic.

A Government Accountability Office report uncovered that while the EPA’s budget has been remaining relatively stable, the amount of employees on the public relations staff has been spiking. In less than a decade, the agency increased its public relations staff by 16 percent with more than 140 employees dedicated to pushing the EPA’s message.

The government also footed the bill for nearly half of the country’s most expensive infrastructure project, which was concentrated in one city alone. After the ‘Big Dig’, a megaproject that rerouted Boston’s primary thoroughfare, was plagued by financial mismanagement and design flaws, the Federal Highway Administration stepped in and provided what amounted to about $7 billion in grants, reported The Boston Globe.

The project was completed in 2010 with a total ticket price of $15 billion.

And while the federal government has spent billions of dollars on one city’s project, it has also spent billions of dollars on individual companies.

According to a 2014 Special Inspector General report, American taxpayers took an $11.2 billion loss on its bailout of General Motors (GM). After the automaker declared bankruptcy in 2009, the government invested $49.5 billion in the company with a 61 percent equity share. Overtime, GM’s stock price dropped, and despite selling back shares, the U.S. government took billion dollar losses.

While a 2017 internal report from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) forecasts that a wall would ultimately cost approximately $21.6 billion to complete, the Federation For American Immigration Reform (FAIR) estimates that the fiscal burden of illegal immigration on the American taxpayers is approximately $115.8 billion annually.

“We would save Billions of Dollars if the Democrats would give us the votes to build the Wall,” Trump tweeted in early December. “Either way, people will NOT be allowed into our Country illegally! We will close the entire Southern Border if necessary. Also, STOP THE DRUGS!”

Congress’s watchdog arm this week raised questions on how effectively the Pentagon and U.S. State Department are overseeing projects linked to multi-billion dollar Global Train and Equip program primarily intended to improve counterterrorism capabilities for U.S. partner nations like Jordan, Niger, and Afghanistan.

In an audit released on Wednesday, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that only eight (about 40 percent) of 21 Global Train and Equip projects undertaken in 2016 and 2017 at the cost of nearly $2 billion resulted in improved capabilities for aid recipient forces.

DOD assessment reports for 2016 and 2017, which included baseline and post-implementation assessments of recipient units’ capabilities for 21 Global Train and Equip projects, indicated some progress in building partner capacity. For 8 of the 21 projects, the recipient units’ capability levels were assessed as having increased by at least one rating level after the project’s implementation.

Although the recipient units for the remaining 13 projects were assessed as showing no change in capability levels, the assessment reports for some of these projects described some positive project outcomes.

The 2006 bill first authorized the Global Train and Equip program. Since then, it has supplied, at the expense of the American taxpayer, training, weapons, and other supplies for local forces through hundreds of initiatives across the globe, the watchdog notes.

GAO’s recent audit covers the status of funding the Pentagon allocated for Global Train and Equip projects in fiscal years 2009 through 2017, estimated at $4.1 billion.

The watchdog determined that the Pentagon’s track record in assessing the effectiveness of Global Train and Equip is lackluster.

Of 262 Global Train and Equip projects carried out by the Pentagon between 2206 and 2015, the U.S. military only assessed a third for success, the GAO revealed, noting:

In 2012 through 2017, the Department of Defense (DOD) prepared assessment reports for 31 percent of the projects (82 of 262 projects) it had implemented in 2006 through 2015.1 These 82 projects account for 28 percent of the nearly $3 billion DOD allocated for the program in those fiscal years.

In 2017, an audit by the Pentagon’s inspector general also found problems with the Global Train and Equip program.